Voters ho-hum over Foley scandal

Published 10:00 pm, Tuesday, October 17, 2006

WASHINGTON -- As much fun as the Foley scandal is for Democrats and late-night comics, early indications are it's a wash with voters.

"Notably, the ongoing scandal involving former Rep. Mark Foley has not had much of an impact on either the engagement or enthusiasm of Democratic and Republican voters," the Pew Research Center for People and the Press reported last week.

That's because Democratic voters are high on the midterms. They're giving a lot of thought to the election and are more enthusiastic about voting than they've been in years. Republicans are less engaged and enthusiastic than usual, the survey found.

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Pew and The Associated Press conducted the nationwide poll of registered voters Sept. 21 to Oct. 4 -- eight days before the Foley scandal broke and six days afterward.

"When these two periods are compared, there are no substantial differences that suggest the event itself was a turning point," the survey said.

When Foley, 52, resigned after being caught sending explicit instant messages to male teenage congressional pages, it looked like the final nail in the Republican midterm coffin. And the news surely hasn't helped the GOP.

But the scandal hasn't played out as many expected. Embattled House Speaker Dennis Hastert has hung on, President Bush at his side. The Republican strategy now is to condemn Foley and insist that anyone who covered up will be held to account when "the facts" are in, whenever that is.

As for the voters, they see politics.

They say Republicans worried more about politics than the safety of the pages -- and Democrats wouldn't have handled the situation any better, an AP-Ipsos poll found.

Two in three voters believe Republican leaders covered up the Foley mess -- and two in three also say Democrats would do the same, according to an ABC News-Washington Post survey. Six in 10 say Democrats are pursuing the matter not because they care about the pages but because they are seeking political advantage.

To be sure, Foley's follies are playing in certain congressional districts.

Republicans are pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into Foley's Palm Beach district, trying to persuade voters to pull the lever for Foley anyway. It was too late to get his name off the ballot, so a vote for Foley is actually for his replacement, Joe Negron.

In Ohio, Rep. Deborah Pryce, a moderate who's chairwoman of the House Republican Conference, told The New York Times her poll numbers plummeted after she named Mark Foley one of her five friends in Washington in an article in Columbus Monthly.

Her Democratic challenger, Mary Jo Kilroy, is running tough ads on Christian radio stations linking Pryce to her friend Foley.